


Upside Down and Back Again

by Crataeis



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Supernatural - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 19:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crataeis/pseuds/Crataeis
Summary: When a new threat begins to emerge from the ashes of the Upside Down, an unlikely group of four of our six main protagonists band together to try and stop it.





	1. Prologue

It felt so good to be loved.

It was almost like a virus that incessantly stimulated irresistible pleasure. It was a lingering drug that could never be fully washed away. His lust was a snake that thrived on those few rushed moments of synthetic attention, those couple of minutes of praise from Father after completing arduous tasks that took drastic effects on his health and slowly drained away his strength, until he was no longer even able to sit up. 

He didn't care.

He never concerned himself over the thought of spending his entire life isolated from society in the colorless, white room of a science lab, patiently waiting to be summoned and endure hours of torment. He didn't mind being stripped naked from his torn, paper hospital gown and submerged into a dark tank of water; water that was so cold he felt as if his skin were being stabbed by thousands of poisonous needles. He never even considered the treasonous thought that he could have another life, a life without pain. 

As long as he was praised for it, he was satisfied. 

But just like everything else in life nothing can stay the same forever, and sometimes the changes aren't always to our own likings. As the years passed, the tests began to grow increasingly difficult, to an extent where even when he was fully submerged into the tank of water, it felt as if nothing happened. The scientists would frown, their faces cold and bitter. The men in white suits pushed him until his knuckles were an albino white and his body was withering in agony, as if they hoped a hidden strength would emerge if he felt enough of the pain, but nothing of that sort, ever happened.

Thus, as a result,  he was no longer praised. 

He looked up at the faceless men who had given him what he had desired his whole life. He found them cold and expressionless. They were nothing to him. He hardly even recalled their names. They had no use in his plan other than to shower him with compliments. 

So he killed one. 

Only seconds later, he was dragged back into the empty, white room and left there to regenerate his energy, while they spoke about him behind his back to decide what to do to the uncooperative experiment. In the next couple of months, they only took him three times to undergo the tests. He sat there for what sometimes felt like weeks, wondering when he would be summoned. Sometimes he felt like he was forgotten, but it was never permanent, the men always came back to fetch him at some point and a certain strike of arrogance formed in his head. They needed him.

With each failed test and every crestfallen look he was shot, he continued to replay the words of Father in his head to try and make himself feel better. "We're going to accomplish great things. Nine. We're going to change the world." They need me, they love me, he tried to convince himself. Who else would they call upon? He was the last one, the most powerful, but without the praise it just wasn't the same. 

Another year passed with little success, but the boy continued to manipulate himself into thinking he was great. No one could replace him. The days turned into months, and with each passing test, the glint of determination in Father's eye turned more into a look of disappointment and anger.

The tests were long and felt like the torture they were without the incentive of applause. He began to hate every passing moment of his life, he began to hate the men in white suits, who dragged him away to endure the torment. The person who he hated the most was Father, he was supposed to be there for him. He continued to act like everything was normal, because disobedience would get him nowhere. Life began to feel like a constant cycle of pain, but at least he was still being acknowledged, at least they still had enough sense to know they needed him. 

Until one day that all changed.

With another failed result, something had finally cracked in Father. Father did something he had never done before. He directly hit him. The boy gapped at him, but Father looked emotionless other than the anger plastered across his face. The boy was dragged back into his empty, white room. He waited. Another day passed, and a little bit of slop for him to eat as food was by his bed when he woke up. Another day passed, and more of the slop was brought to him, along with a small cup of water. He went through the same routine for months, until he began to worry something was wrong with Father. Why else would Father not have come for him?

The next day, the boy decided to search for Father. When the slop came, he slipped outside the door when the man in the white suite had thought he was asleep. He was careful to avoid the crowded hallways and mostly hung to the sides of the wall. He decided to make his way to the tank. After all, that's where he always saw father the most.

The scene he saw was forever etched into his memory and would never fade.

Father was smiling, a real smile, one he hadn't given the boy in years. Except, the smile wasn't directed at him, it was directed at a young girl standing next to Father with a shaved head, similar to his own. Her face was young like his own, but appeared sharp at the edges. He concluded she was even younger than him, by at least three years. She had a lean body, skinny from being underfed, but she radiated strength, something he hadn't felt in a long time. Her skin was pale from never being able to see the sunlight, but still looked quite healthy. She was dressed in a brown dress-like suite and was soaking wet. The rest of the men with white suites were also smiling. He stayed there, staring for what felt like a century. Finally, he came to a realization. 

She had passed the test, the one he had failed for so long.

She was better than him.

Something changed inside the boy that day. His heart broke, and when your heart breaks, it can grow back crooked and hard. The boy was gone, and in his place stood a man.

A man that swore revenge.


	2. Outcast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all the people reading this right now... Don't have much else to say so happy reading.

Max despised them all.

No, the more she thought about it, resented was a better word.

Ever since she had joined that stupid party on that awkward and lonely first day of school, all they did was torment her and treat her like a second rate piece of shit. That was to put it nicely. It just didn't make any sense. She hardly even knew where half of them lived, let alone them knowing where she lived, so technically, they were strangers. Yet, for an unknown reason, they constantly used her as a punching bag or looked at her like a little flea on the wall with no emotion, rather than a person. She tried to be nice. She even broke the law and risked her own ass to drive them off to their deaths to fight some interdimensional monsters they kept comparing to their nerdy Dungeons and Dragons game. Well, nice Max wasn't going to stick around forever.

She closed off her thoughts and pressed her foot down to the frozen ground, propelling her skateboard forward. 

Mike, Eleven, and Dustin were the worst, Mike especially, the boy the Hawkins' school bullies, Troy and James, had nicknamed "Frog Face" because of his childlike large cheeks, and roundish face untouched by puberty. From day one it felt like the guy was a hound off to kill the evil fox that tried to commit the horrendous crime of talking to him. At first it had only been small gestures, like a small grunt to emphasize he didn't want her there, or an incinerating glare, which was his way of signaling "get lost". After a while though, he became more open about it. He even admitted to her that he didn't like her. A cold fist clenched around her heart and embedded itself there. What had she ever done to him?

Then there was Eleven, the girl with the biggest brown eyes and most "innocent" expression always spread across her face, that even the mighty Steve Harrington couldn't say no. She wanted to roll her eyes. Well, maybe they were somewhat right and, at least to them, she was pretty innocent, Max could see why they thought that of her. Eleven's head was full of chestnut curls that were always bouncing whenever she made movement, and there was an expression of awe whenever she saw something any normal person would recognize in an instant, but unfortunately Max hadn't gotten that experience yet, because instead she found herself being a recurring target to test telekinetic powers on. Of course, she had never directly told her she disliked her, the girl probably didn't even know what that word meant, just like all the other words, but whenever she felt her skateboard being magnetically pulled on, it was pretty obvious what was happening.

Finally, there was Dustin. He had been really nice to her at first. His wild brown curly hair and optimistic personality always somehow put a smile on her face after a heated argument, that usually turned into a fight, with her brother, Billy. She guessed good things didn't last forever though, because soon after he became bitter towards her too, just like Mike had. She couldn't even explain it, the whole switch was just like an overnight thing.

She jumped, while flipping her skateboard over, and landed perfectly back on the ground, continuing to ride in the direction of home. She curled her lips into a grim smile, her blue eyes having a focused, but at the same time a distant look about them. Anyone who didn't know her any better would say she even looked content. 

At least skateboarding was one thing she could do right.

She heard the ring of a bell belonging to a bike in the distance.

"Max!" a familiar voice she would recognize anywhere called out to her. "Max!" the voice called out again, this time a little bit louder.

She rolled her eyes, bringing her skateboard to a halt. She didn't even have to look back to check who it was. "What do you want, Stalker?"

The boy known as Lucas caught up to her on his black and silver bike in a matter of seconds. He leaped down and held the handles of the bike as he stood, not wanting it to touch the dirt of the road. "I just wanted to apologize about Dustin. He can be an idiot."

"You can't apologize for him," Max pointed out, meeting his gaze. His chocolate colored eyes looked strangely sincere, a look Max hadn't been given in a long time. She looked away, unsure how to react to the unfamiliar kind gesture. "I mean, I doubt he's sorry. If he was sorry he would have come here himself." She used her left foot to step on the edge of her skateboard, and grabbed it with her hand to put under her arm, as it came up. She began to walk away.

"Wait! You don't think I know that?" he shouted after her, gripping the handles of his bike tighter and running to catch up with her. "Look, I'm just saying that Dustin doesn't hate you." 

"Oh, yeah, sure," Max responded sardonically. "Of course he doesn't mean it. Every time he mentally tells me to get lost or glares at me for saying the wrong thing, he's just being manipulated by some Yuan-Ti from your stupid Dungeons and Dragons game." 

"You know what a Yuan-Ti is?" Lucas observed wide-eyed.

"Yes, you guys talk about your nerdy games so much, how couldn't I?" she quipped. She didn't want it getting out to any of them that she had stolen some money from Billy, in order to buy a Dungeons and Dragons book. Honestly, she didn't even like the game. She had only wanted to not feel so left out or uncomfortable when the rest of them were talking about it. 

"Well, my point is," Lucas said redirecting the subject, "I don't think Dustin meant what he said tonight."

"Keep telling yourself that," she said bitterly. What Dustin had said hurt. 

It hurt because it was the truth, maybe he didn't mean it, but it was the truth. 

"No one in the party hates you," Lucas informed.

She barked a laugh. "That was a joke, right?"

"I'm serious," he insisted. Max heard the slight chatter in his teeth he was trying to hide from the cold night air.

"You want my jacket?" She asked, she was more than used to the cold.

"No!" He blurted out almost immediately.

"What? Too much pride to take a jacket from a girl, Stalker?" Max shrugged. She saw that they were already in front of her house, time went fast when you were talking to someone you actually enjoyed talking to. "You better get out of here before Billy sees you."

"Yeah, see you MadMax," he hoisted himself up back onto his bike, took a single look back, and drove off into the night.

A semblance of a smile lingered on Max's face. At least there was one person in the world that didn't hate her. 

She walked up cautiously to the door incase Billy was in a bad mood. She shivered at just the thought. Putting her ear up against the door, she heard loud music streaming out from inside. That was a good sign, maybe he wouldn't have even  
noticed she was gone.

She doubted it.

Max could never understand why she jeopardized herself against Billy's rage to go hang out with people who obviously didn't want her there. She had lied so many times to her brother and imperiled herself countless times. 

Maybe living with Billy had killed half her brain cells.

Hesitantly, she slowly opened the door, because she had to come home at some point, and she wasn't one for stalling. The door creaked open; she cringed. She kept trying to tell Billy to lock it incase of intruders, but he insisted no one in this dumb town was smart enough to steal from him. He almost dared someone to come through these doors.

Almost the moment she stepped into the room, large hands grabbed her shoulders and threw her up against the wall. Her skateboard clattered to the floor.

"Where the hell have you been?!" Billy demanded, his sour breath and glare right in front of her face. A stony rock of fear clamped together at the pit of her stomach. She was used to this, she tried to tell herself. He wasn't going to hurt her.

She was never going to get used to this.

"Chill out," she maintained, slowly releasing herself from his grasp. "I was just at the arcade."

He flipped back his wild cherry blonde hair with a toss of his head. "Were you hanging out with that boy again?"

Her blood turned to ice. She stiffened. "So? Is it any of your business?" 

Again he slammed her against the wall. "I told you not to hang out with him!"

"You don't control my life!" She interjected. 

"Oh, yeah?" He asserted. "Who watches out for you?"

"I watch out for me," she answered, flipping her fiery orange hair away from her face, with a challenging glare. 

"Who protects you?" He continued, a dangerous glint in his stormy blue eyes.

"I don't need protecting," she responded, meeting his eyes. She was trying to stifle out the fear welling up in her stomach. 

"Are you threatening me, Max?" Billy warned. She didn't respond. "I said, are you threatening me?!"

She made a decision she sincerely regretted, she stayed silent. 

"Let me make something clear," he breathed. He picked up her skateboard off of the floor. "You do not make the threats here, I do, and you do not disobey me." 

"Wait, Billy, what are you doing?" Max asked in a small voice. He put his hands on the two ends of the board. Her eyes widened in realization, horror evident on her face. 

"NO! STOP!" She screamed at him, trying desperately to claw his hands off the slate of wood, she had come to love. She wasn't strong enough, he batted her away like a little fly. She knew what was coming.

He looked her in the eyes, power sizzling through them. "There's nothing you can do to stop me." He snapped the board in half, the wooden shards crumpling to the floor. Max cried out, reaching out to grab the broken pieces, but before she could he squished the remains with his foot.

She sunk to the ground, tears welling up in her eyes. "I hate you."

"I'm protecting you," he corrected, unfazed by what had just happened. "That should be a lesson to you to not hang out with bad people. That could've been your head." He stride back to his room where the music she hated was blaring.

Max swung the door open and ran, running on pure adrenaline and resentment. The few moments she had spent with Lucas just minutes earlier were long forgotten. She needed to leave, she didn't know where she was going, but she was getting the hell away from here.

She wondered if anyone would care if she just disappeared.


End file.
